


You've Ruined The Colour Blue For Me

by thegreatestsun



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Emotional Hurt, Established Relationship, Hints Of a Happy Ending, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, My best friend is gonna shoot me for this but i don't cARE, Rain, This Is Sad, Wally West is a villain, haha oops, kind of, there's hope, villain AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26103340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreatestsun/pseuds/thegreatestsun
Summary: Never in his life did Dick Grayson think he’d feel the urge to swing away from Wally West – wherever you’re going, I’m going, after all – but, well… life was full of surprises.---Villain AU: Wally is a villain, and Dick still misses him.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Wally West
Comments: 27
Kudos: 144





	You've Ruined The Colour Blue For Me

**Author's Note:**

> ...I just want to formally apologise -
> 
> Look i was having a blast writing this but i'm looking back on it and... ouch. 
> 
> There's no trigger warnings here but like this is sad so be careful if you're not in a great mood okay? Take care of yourself babes <3
> 
> The title and line used in this fic is from the song "Blah Blah Blah" by The Oozes!

Never in his life did Dick Grayson think he’d feel the urge to swing _away_ from Wally West – _wherever you’re going, I’m going,_ after all – but, well… life was full of surprises.

The rain fell softly, washing away Blüdhaven’s noise with the gentle rush of water. It flickered blue, red, blue again as the neon sign in the distance flashed. Blue and red… those were their colours.

At least, they were. Once.

That was before… everything. So much that Dick didn’t even want to think – a giant mess of threads and lies and manipulation that had spun and sewn themselves into the scene before him.

Wally West, ex-Flash and ex-superhero, currently going by the name Velocity, and… a villain. Sitting on the edge of a rooftop during a quiet night in Blüdhaven, letting the rain soak his bright hair to an almost brown, like it’d ever get close to that.

The light from the neon sign coloured him bright red, and for a second, Dick could pretend. He could _pretend_ , that it was just another patrol, another patrol where his boyfriend was joining him, taking a second to relax, or waiting for Nightwing to catch up. He could pretend.

Then the light flashed blue, painting the puddles of water ocean blue, making the rain dancing down glow bright turquoise, and the moment was gone.

He was trapped. He couldn’t leave; Wally would hear him. Notice him, and when Wally knew so much about Dick – that he favoured his left arm when swinging with his grapple, that his right foot was a little weaker from being broken early in his childhood, that he always held back in sparring, that he liked it when Wally carded his fingers through his hair and kissed his jaw – that was dangerous. He could blink, and he’d lose the fight.

But he couldn’t approach Wally either. If Dick even made the slightest noise, stepped in the wrong place once, Wally would be gone before Dick could even breathe in – with words on his tongue, _please come back home. I forgive you; I’ll **always** forgive you _– and he’d have to go back to agonizing over whether or not he’d fucked up _again_.

(Normally, he’d have Wally there with him. Curl up behind him, and whisper reassurances in his ear, hold him close, tracing scars and letting Dick soak up his wildfire heat until he felt more like a person again. But… there was always a but…)

So… He was trapped. Trapped in the corner of a random roof in Blüdhaven as his kind-of-but-not-really-at-all-ex-boyfriend who was now a villain relaxed on the edge, turned away from him.

How was he in one of the most vulnerable positions possible, yet Dick was the one who felt like he was pinned down?

The light flickered red, painting Wally’s new black and gold suit crimson. Dick would be lying if he said it didn’t suit him, an all-black suit with gold lightning crisscrossing over his arms and legs. He just wished it could’ve existed for a different reason.

“Y’know, for a Bat,” Wally said quietly, and all the blood in Dick’s body froze to ice, leaving him paralysed, the breath caught in his lungs.

His hair dripped a droplet of water onto his nose. He focused on the feeling of it slipping off and glowing ruby red as it fell to the ground, as he tried to gain control of his racing thoughts and heart.

“…you’re kinda shit at stealth.” Wally continued. He leant forward head tilted down, letting his arms rest beside him. Dick recognised that position. Wally was _tired_. Tired and angry and upset and hurt – and – and normally Dick would be there. To grab him by the waist and kiss his shoulder and count his freckles until Wally laughed and complained of him tickling him on purpose but –

The light flashed blue, and all the vibrancy was gone. He was another bad guy, bathed in sapphire. In Nightwing blue.

“Maybe you just know me too well.” Dick muttered, shocking himself with how clear it came out, despite his throat feeling glued together. He shivered slightly, the chill of the rain sapping the heat out of his skin.

They were both silent for a moment, the rain being the only constant noise. If Dick really listened, he could hear a car honking in the distance, maybe people talking, laughing, _together_ … the buzz of that neon sign.

It flashed red again. Wally’s hair, despite being soaked through, was scarlet in the dim light. Dick felt a raindrop slide down his own neck, and shivered.

“Well, sweetheart, ain’t that a shame?” Wally said, and Dick could only see the back of his head, but he could _hear_ the smirk in his voice, could _hear_ the look in his eyes and the way the freckles under his eyes disappeared under his eyelashes when he smiled, hear the tiny sparkle he got in his eye and the way his right eyebrow arched slightly when he was being cocky and condescending on purpose –

And maybe Dick was making everything up. Maybe he was imagining things, but there was a softness in those words. Maybe he was reaching, maybe he was desperate, maybe he just _wanted Wally back_ – but there was _longing_ in that endearment mumbled in the blood red light. Maybe – god, _please_ – just _maybe_ – Wally wanted him back too.

Because… it wasn’t Wally’s fault. There was almost no proof there, no evidence that it _wasn’t_ , any detective with common sense would’ve denied it, but… Dick knew it wasn’t. He knew it from the bottom of his heart, he knew it as truly as a bird knew it had to spread its wings to fly.

God. He knew it. He _knew_ it was true. It had to be.

“It’s not.” Dick whispered softly, and he wasn’t crying. It’d taken months, but he’d swallowed all his tears. The rain sliding down his mask and onto his face felt uncomfortably familiar, regardless. “Not with you.”

Wally was cerulean, and spotted with rain. Not that it mattered, every time he ran the water just flew off of him. When had the sign changed, anyway?

“You ever…” he coughed, faked and slightly awkward, and trailed off – _just like he always did, when he was thinking faster than even he could speak, when he was so excited about a new scientific discovery that he struggled to put it into words, when he was trying to find a new way to tell Dick how much he loved him, because he was a dork that cared about shit like that, and that made Dick’s heart **ache**_ – “think about what we used to say to each other? That one thing?”

Wally was faking not remembering. He was a terrible actor. Even if he wasn’t, Dick knew that he had those words burnt right onto his heart.

“Which one?” and that was _also_ true, because there were so _many_. _You’re a dick. You’re my best friend. I love you._ But that wasn’t what Wally was looking for, that wasn’t it at _all_. Because anyone, _anyone_ , could say those things to each other, and mean it with all their heart and soul, with every bone in their body and every drop of blood in their veins. And yet, anyone could say those things like it was nothing but a breeze in the rain-soaked air.

No. What Wally was looking for was something specific. Something specific to _them_.

Wally leaned backwards, tilting his head up to the sky, and the raindrops on his golden goggles glowed cherry red. It reminded Dick of his old Kid Flash uniform, and it shouldn’t have made his breath catch in the way it did.

“Wherever you’re going, I’m going.” Wally said quietly, and his voice was almost muffled, voice kept soft by the rain and the wind, but it echoed through Dick like it’d been screamed into a cave.

“Do you want a head start?” Dick asked, his breath fanning out in the cold air. If it were any other villain, Nightwing would’ve taken them down by now, if it were any other villain. Any other enemy or foe.

And yet, here he was. Asking the villain who also happened the be the fastest man on Earth if he wanted a head start.

“Letting me go, eh?” Wally asked, finally turning around to face Nightwing, his face caught between dark shadows, and bright azure as the neon sign flickered. He grinned, and even though it was sharper than a rapier, Dick felt his heart squeeze. “Christ, you’ve gone soft.” He scoffed, but there was no real venom in his voice. He raked his eyes up and down the Nightwing suit, stained lapis blue from the sign, shiny and sparkly with rainwater.

“…Consider it a late anniversary gift.” Dick whispered; his voice almost drowned out by the rain. “You missed our sixth.”

Wally blinked, finally looking caught off-guard. He blurred for a second, and then he was stood, inches closer to Dick than before. Inches. Inches that felt like _miles_ closer.

“I was planning on proposing, y’know.” He said, his voice uncharacteristically flat. Dick had never heard him speak about anything with so little emotion. For the first time all night, fear crept into Dick’s gut. Not _from_ Wally, but from what the hell had _happened_ to him.

He paused. A puddle next to Dick’s foot made a splashing noise as the rain poured down from the sky between them.

“I got you a ring and everything. It was all silver, with red and blue stones.” Wally continued, dragging his eyes up from Dick’s boots to his domino, his eyes scanning every detail. Normally, _normally_ , that’d make him laugh, elbow his boyfriend in the ribs and throw a flirty comment at him. This time it made ice water pool in his gut.

“But you’ve ruined the colour blue for me.” Wally said, and the neon sign flickered vermillion, reflecting off of his goggles, obscuring his eyes.

There was a crackle of lightning, and Wally was gone, leaving only the smell of ozone and the feeling of a scrape on Dick’s cheek.

Oh.

He – He knew that feeling, knew that feeling well. When Wally pressed a kiss to his cheek whilst going at superspeed. He’d felt it against his forehead and cheeks on the battlefield, on his lips and neck in the comfort of their – _his, just his now_ – apartment, other places, in the privacy of their bedroom.

He’d spent sleepless nights staring at the ceiling – _at Wally’s side of the bed, at the toothbrush he’d left, the hoodies that used to be his that Dick had stolen, at all his clothes still left in the drawers. He hadn’t taken anything at all, when he disappeared. The only indicator he was missing, not dead, was the Flash costume missing from their hiding spot, and a framed photo of the Titans, Dick, Wally, Roy, Garth, and Donna, all of them, was gone_ – wondering if he’d ever feel that small scrape again.

He sighed, and rested his gloved fingers against his cheek. It sounded ridiculous, but he wished he had them off, so he could feel it with his skin instead of just through several layers of fabric.

He shook his head, raindrops flying off his loose hair – ‘ _you need to cut it’, Wally would say, a little regretfully, because he and Dick both knew they both loved it when his hair was a little longer and a little fluffier_ – and looked up at the neon sign as it flickered from red, to blue, to red, to blue, red, blue, red, blue…

‘You’ve ruined the colour blue for me.’

Red and blue. Red was Dick’s favourite colour – it had been since he’d seen Wally’s hair in a sunset, the way he flushed when he was embarrassed or drunk or angry or even just too warm, how proud and yet afraid he’d been the first time Dick saw him in the Flash costume. It was Dick’s favourite colour, because it was _Wally’s_.

Wally had used to say blue was his favourite colour. Had used to tease Dick, saying he’d need to guess if he wanted to know if it was from Nightwing, or his eyes. One time he’d joked that it was because it was the colour of the sky, and as Dick was a _bird_ … he’d gotten swatted and rolled eyes for that one, but Dick had smiled and stored it in the place between his ribs, where he kept all of Wally’s words.

_You’ve ruined the colour blue for me._

Oh yeah. He had a criminal to catch.

_Wherever you’re going, I’m going_ , indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry...
> 
> If you were emotionally attacked by this fic please comment and let me know :D


End file.
